Counter to this is the persistent myth that we can just increase capacity to meet demand. That growth will continue and that this can be sustained. The global p

Counter to this is the persistent myth that we can just increase capacity to meet demand. That growth will continue and that this can be sustained. The global population is double what it was fifty years ago and fifteen percent of the entire lived collective consciousness of humans is walking the earth right now. Aside from our theoretical ability to meet increased energy demand, our biosphere doesn’t support the entire population of earth living at the American level of consumption. Even putting aside that, that standard of living fundamentally depends on the labour output of developing nations. Without it the economics look very different. Could France have fully de-carbonised it’s grid without international trade to less developed nations producing many things it consumes? Doubtful. High tech sustainable energy is the privilege of stable, developed nations which leverage a significant portion of their living standards from the labour of other, less developed nations. So you keep hearing this notion because the current notion doesn’t scale to the current earth population let alone where it will be in another fifty years. Both are little more than flights of fancy and their main use is as thought experiments to hopefully come up with something that will actually work. The current trajectory can’t be sustained, and the self-sacrifice utopia will never be reached. In between are scenarios where we’re screwed, but hopefully also ones where we’re not. The search continues. I completely agree that the concept of a global population of self sacrificing humans is not foreseeable or realistic. But I think that must be tempered with the equal improbability of an energy abundant utopia as you foresee. If it was going to happen we at least need a clear actionable means of making it so, and either outcome seems to have the same foil: human behaviour and self interest.